Chapter THIRTY-SEVEN
Landon
The creatures moved in without fear, as though they knew I wasn't strong enough to repel them. I held the stone at chest height, muscles straining to maintain it. Finally, three of them came within reach, and with a howl I focused and brought the stone up, leaping and cracking it into a skull that was ten feet over my head, using my other hand to grab the beaten monster's shoulder and vault over it, while the other two tried to change direction. It brought me down closer to the others, but the maneuver confused them, and their size made for poor agility.
I swung the rock around, cracking it into a kneecap, ducking and rolling backwards away from a gigantic foot. The demons howled and screeched around me, shoving each other aside to make room. I brought the stone up over my head to block an attack, tensing my arms and feeling my feet sinking into the ground in an effort to deflect the force. I threw the rock upwards, smashing another skull, leaping up behind it and catching it on the way down.
If there hadn't been so many of them, it might have been impressive.
Instead, my strength was fading, and one more blow against my shield from a heavy claw left me on my back a dozen feet away. I dropped the now too-heavy stone and tried to scramble to my feet, feeling a level of exhaustion set in and starting to accept that I was going to lose.
The demons approached, their howling louder, their teeth chattering in anticipation.
Abaddon stepped in front of them.
His essence billowed out around him, casting forward like a net and wrapping around the creatures. Their glorious howls turned to hopeless moans, and their knees buckled beneath the power. I watched while he fed, the tendrils of his energy forcing their way into the monsters, finding their souls and drinking them dry. I could barely see him amidst the shadow of his power, but I was sure I heard him sigh.
Then it was over. The creatures were gone, their bodies gray and falling to ash. Abaddon turned to face me, his cloak shrinking out of my path.
"Hurry, child. We must hurry." He held out his hand to help me to my feet.
I grabbed it and let him pull me up. "I thought-"
"I betrayed you? In other circumstances, perhaps, but we had a promise in blood, and my word is the only precious thing that remains to me." His red eyes filled with dark flames. "He found a way to use your child against you and I both."
"The Beast?"
He shook his head. "No. Not the Beast. There is another entity here, one that I do not recognize, and did not see. She tried to warn you, to show you his true purpose."
"Malize?"
"I do not know that name."
My blood ran cold. Malize had come to collect Ross after the universe had been broken, and now Abaddon was suggesting he was somehow here, in the Box, and he had taken control of Clara. Was it Malize, or a shade of Malize? Or was it some nascent energy that had been embedded in the Templar script that powered it? Either way, I wasn't sure what to make of it. He had passed himself off as an archangel to Charis and me, but Clara's warning was suggesting something far more sinister. Was he a benevolent being in search of justice, or an agent of whatever had caused the destruction, seeking its final end? He had brought me this far, aided us in our fight against Ross. He had delivered Avriel to us, and provided the gun that was still resting in the small of my back. He was supposed to be an angel of God.
He had also sent the first round of monsters to attack us, and now he had taken Clara. Her power, our connection... had it ever truly been ours?
What the hell was he really?
"Diuscrucis, come."
I looked at Abaddon and felt my heart sinking. Charis was a Templar, a secret society of Divine that had been founded by the archangel. Did she know the truth of him?
"Diuscrucis." Abaddon's hand touched my face, and I felt the coldness of the despair. It was enough of a shock that it drew me out of my daze.
"Where is Clara?" I asked.
"She and the seraph have taken the path."
"Then we need to follow. Which way?"
Abaddon motioned off to a pile of rubble, and a ruined street beyond it. "There."
We both ran.
My power was gone, spent. My energy was almost the same. I staggered behind Abaddon, fighting to keep up with nothing more than sheer will. If I was going to do anything to help anyone, I needed to get out of this place, whatever this place was.
We reached the road beyond the rubble. Abaddon stopped.
"It has been altered."
"What do you mean altered? Isn't this your path, your route?"
"Yes. It was, until I brought you here." He kneeled down and put his fingers to the ground. "He is trying to keep you away."
I heard motion from our left. Another of the creatures moved out from behind the blown out wall of what used to be an apartment building. Three more followed behind it.
"I can't fight them," I said. "My power is gone."
He turned his head in their direction. His power snaked away from him, tendrils running along the ground. The creatures never saw it until it had pooled below their feet. "He would never expect me to help you, child. He has no concept of my promise, or my respect." The idea seemed to make him angry. The creatures bellowed and turned to dust under his strength.
"Great. Which way?"
He lifted his fingers to his lips, and pointed back the way we had come. "That way."
I followed behind him again, every step leaving me burning with pain. It felt like we ran forever, along burned and blasted roads.
Erus stepped out in front of us.
His face was burned, his right eye gone. His clothes were torn and singed. I don't know how he was still standing with so much damage. He saw us coming and began to scream.
"For all I have sacrificed. For all I have endured. This is how it ends."
Abaddon lashed out with his power, and threw him away from us. I gave him only a quick look as we passed him by; crying in the dirt, a pitiful, broken wreck.
"We are near," he said. He stopped again and put his fingers to the ground.
"What are you doing?"
"Tracing the power. I have taken this path. I have claimed it with all of the essence that remains to me in this place. It is but a single thread, but it is my domain. He cannot hide from me here, not completely."
He grabbed my arm and leaped. We launched high into the air, a hundred feet, two hundred, approaching a tall building that once had been coated in thousands of panes of glass, but now was just a metal framework. We came down on the roof, landing without a sound. He let me go.
Avriel was standing there. Clara was gone.
"You're supposed to be helping me," I said.
"No, diuscrucis. I was charged with protecting the girl." He held his blade in his hand, and he was blocking the small steel door into the stairwell. I had a feeling it didn't lead down into the skeletal remains of the building.
"Let him pass," Abaddon said. "I made a promise in blood, and you have interfered." A sword grew from his darkness, a scimitar of black despair.
"I cannot. I delivered the girl to him. Now my purpose is to prevent him from fulfilling his duty." The archangel's eyes caught on mine. "All you need do is wait, Landon. He means you and Charis no harm. You will be rewarded for what you have done."
No harm? Clara had shown me who he was for a reason, and it wasn't so that I would put my faith in him.
"Let me pass," I said. I didn't have a sword. I could barely stand up.
It didn't matter.
I walked towards the seraph, my eyes fixed on his. I reached behind me and pulled out the gun. It was still the same, plain thing it had always been. Why had Malize sent me to find this thing, if I wasn't supposed to use it?
Avriel attacked before I could aim, shooting forward and bringing his sword down in a smooth stroke towards my head. I slipped aside, Josette's training and muscle memory kicking in through my subconscious. I reached out and grabbed the angel's wrist, meaning to throw him over my shoulder.
I just wasn't strong enough.
I pulled against him, but it wasn't even enough for him to lose his balance. He wrenched back, throwing me towards the end of the rooftop. Somehow I managed to hold onto the pistol and come to a stop before I plunged over.
Abaddon picked up my slack. He came at Avriel in a flurry of motion, his tendrils of power whipping out around him in an effort to distract the demon. They had danced this dance an infinite number of times, and the angel didn't fall for any of it. He stayed focused on the dark sword, and they came together in a furious clash of energy. I pulled myself to my feet and held up the gun, trying to get a clear shot. The motion was just too quick.
They pounded at one another, the hate and anger obvious from both. I could feel the temperature drop around me, and my breath caught when the first wave of hopelessness crashed against my soul. I knew the same power was hitting Avriel, but which of us would break first?
It wasn't going to be me. I got on my hands and knees, and then on my stomach. I inched towards the doorway, sliding along the rooftop, using my arms to propel me and trying desperately not to attract their attention. They circled one another at a dizzying rate, their weapons smacking and crashing, each hit a sizzle of energy that ionized the air around them.
Still I crawled, my mind focused only on Clara and Charis. What was Malize going to do to them? What was Malize going to do to us all?
A sword landed in front of my face.
"You will not pass," Avriel shouted. His need to stop me was without logic. Abaddon tackled him, and they both vanished from the rooftop.
I reached up and grabbed the hilt of the sword, using it to pull myself to my feet. Then I removed it from the stone, feeling the lightness and balance. The door was only a few feet away. I stumbled forward and grabbed the handle, turning it and throwing it open.
I stepped through.